Whoda thunk it?

So today is June 3rd. As of YESTERDAY, we still have a fire burning in our wood stove. This is NOT supposed to be fire season... Oh well. We have discovered (o.k., so it was mostly ME who made the discovery) that if you let the chimney get really hot, it breaks out in flames...

Thursday, May 22, I started a chimney fire. I didn't do it on purpose, although I did tell Savannah that we were trying to remodel, and I didn't want to go through the whole tear down phase, that it would be easier to just start from the ground up... she didn't believe me. Before I get too far into the story, I should let everyone know that we had no damage to the house, and that there was no smoke inside the house, but it was an adventure.

We had plans to go to Costco for a cheap dinner and a few other food items that we needed... unfortunately, I left the car in "on" position, and the battery died. This particular battery was old enough that we couldn't get it to jump, so we bagged the costco idea, and Andrew left to get a new battery. Meanwhile, I went back into the house and opened up both dampers on the woodstove so that I could get it hot enough to cook on. (yes, we are a bit old fashioned, but I wouldn't trade our energy bill for ANYTHING!) Pork Chops cooking well, I'm reading a book, and the kids are watching Brother Bear. Then Andrew came home.

The first I knew he was home, he came running into the house and shut the stove down, then ran back out of the house - leaving me wondering if he wasn't hungry... not two minutes later, he came running BACK in the house and told me that we had a fire. It took mere seconds for me to erase the "duh - it's in the woodstove" thought out of my head and realize that we had a chimney fire. So... thinking that the fire department needed something to do on a Thursday night, we called them. You have to know - at this point - that we live on a busy street. At the top of a hill, no less, so not only did the fire department from Turner arrive, they brought their own traffic control, the paramedics, the fire chief's truck, AND to make things even better, the fire department from neighboring Jefferson ALSO came. Apparently they didn't have anything to do either. Needless to say, the neighbors had a bit of entertainment, and we had the fire department as guests for the next 2.5 hours.

All ended up well... The porkchops ended up in the trash, and we had Costco for dinner after all. Andrew and I decided that we're NOT doing that again. As nice as it was to know that the fire department is really prompt, we don't need to get to know them THAT well. Especially since the fire chief's kids are school friends of Savannah's, and his wife is the president of the PTO. We'll stick to other ways of involving ourselves in the community.

My whole point to this entry was that it's JUNE, for crying out loud! We SHOULDN'T have a fire in the woodstove! But... we do, and it's keeping the house nice and toasty, thank you very much.